The Final Features

Unfortunately my last scheduled book, Guilty Pleasures, was not able to come in on time. However, here is where having read many vampire books before works to my advantage. My absolute favorite vampire novel (series actually) is called Twilight (movie is coming out in December; picture is of the vampire part of the cast) and I definitely recommend that everyone read it because it is an awesome book. I seem to say that about a lot of books, but for this book it is especially true.

The series is about a clumsy teenager named Bella. Her parents are divorced and when her mom remarries, she moves in with her dad in the small town of Forks, Washington. At the local high school, she finds herself the center of attention of the entire school. Eating lunch with her friends, she takes notice of the Cullen family, who sits in their own corner of the cafeteria and don’t seem to associate with everyone else. She says that they all look like they could be supermodels and they move very gracefully. Bella especially notices Edward Cullen. Eventually Bella and Edward start to talk to each other and, after Bella almost gets killed in accidents, she finds out that he and his family are vampires.

However, Bella quickly finds that most of the information that people know about vampires is completely false. They don’t sleep in coffins. They can come out in the sunlight (but they sparkle like diamonds if they do!). They can’t be killed with stakes. BUT they do have do drink blood. The Cullens are different from most vampires. Others drink human blood without a second thought. However, the Cullens have resolved to only drink the blood of animals.

Looking at these four books, it is easy to see that there definitely have been changes in vampires throughout the years. In Dracula and I Am Legend, vampires were just evil, bloodthirsty monsters that were out to kill people. Interview with the Vampire gave the vampires consciences, but they still drank from people. The most recent novel, Twilight, has some of the vampires completely abstaining from human blood altogether. The methods for killing vampires vary slightly from book to book. Dracula and Twilight have similar transformations (biting the person who will be a vampire). The strengths of the vampires are basically the same (very strong, fast, etc.). The personalities of the vampires differ completely. The first two books had the vampires as monsters. Interview with the Vampire and Twilight give the vampires more human characteristics. They are capable of thoughts other than of blood and they can show compassion and love. So, overall, some things haven’t changed, but the vampires do seem to have become more human in recent years than they used to be portrayed.